Liver Cancer Killed Campbell, Family Says

June 21, 1990|by PAUL WIRTH, The Morning Call

Robert K. Campbell died of liver cancer.

Campbell, who was chairman, president and chief executive officer of Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., was buried Tuesday, about a week after he shocked company employees and the Lehigh Valley with the news that he would step down for undisclosed health reasons.

In deference to Campbell's family, PP&L steadfastly refused to release any information about the 59-year-old executive's illness. Yesterday, however, family members authorized the company to reveal information about the disease.

John T. Kauffman, PP&L's new chairman, posted a short note on company bulletin boards. It thanked employees on behalf of Campbell's family for their expressions of sympathy, and said the executive died Saturday in Lehigh Valley Hospital Center of "virus-induced liver cancer."

PP&L spokesman Bud Hackett said yesterday it was Campbell's wish that his illness not be disclosed. He said Campbell felt that details of his personal health were not a public matter.

With the funeral behind them, Hackett said, family members decided to reveal specifics about the illness as a courtesy to the thousands of company employees and community acquaintances who expressed their sympathies.

Cancer that originates in the liver is relatively rare in the United States, according to Dr. David Prager, an area cancer specialist. Campbell was Prager's patient, but Prager, citing patient confidentiality, agreed to talk only in general terms about liver cancer.

The disease affects men more often than women, Prager said. People at the highest risk are those who have had hepatitis B, or those with an inherited condition called hemochromatosis, an increased amount of iron in the body.

Campbell "contracted hepatitis B as a young man," Hackett said. He said liver cancer was the primary cause of death and hepatitis B was the secondary cause. He said he had no details about how Campbell got hepatitis B.

Hepatitis B can be transmitted orally, but it is most commonly contracted through needle sticks, contaminated needles or transfusions of contaminated blood products, Prager said. It is not the same as hepatitis A, the disease that caused a scare in some area restaurants recently and prompted 10,000 people in Pennsylvania to be immunized.

As with most cancers, Prager said, it is possible to have liver cancer for many years without knowing it. And, he said, it is not unusual for death to come quickly after advanced-stage cancer is discovered.

Liver cancer symptoms, Prager said, can include weakness, fullness in the abdomen, and possibly jaundice, or yellowing of the skin. Liver cancer can be fatal because the liver is the largest and one of the most complex internal organs. It acts as a chemical factory to produce crucial body proteins and other chemicals, Prager says.

Liver transplants can be used to treat liver cancer, Prager said, depending on the type of cancer and its location. Usually, however, liver cancer spreads to other areas of the body, making a transplant ineffective, he said.

Prager is chief of hematology and medical oncology at Lehigh Valley Hospital Center and Allentown Hospital, and he is a professor of medicine at Hahnemann University School of Medicine, Philadelphia.